Quotes from Gregory Boyd

Our central job is not to solve the world's problems. Our job is to draw our entire life from Christ and manifest that life to others. Nothing could be simpler—and nothing could be more challenging.

In a creation populated with free agents, God doesn't always get what he wants. Augustine and the church tradition that followed him were simply mistaken when they insisted that the will of the omnipotent is always undefeated. Because God desires a creation in which love is a reality, he allows his will to be defeated to some extent.

If God does not know with certainty all that will come to pass, as Open Theism argues, believers cannot have the assurance that God has a purpose for every event of their life. Tragedies may occur that God did not specifically ordain or allow, for he did not even know for certain that they would come about. Against such a notion, Scripture encourages believers to look for the hand of God in the midst of their hardships (Exod. 4:11; Heb. 12:3—13). 2.

God acts toward his people, as much as possible, but since he is a God of persuasion rather than coercion, God also allows his people to act on him and to thereby condition the form his self-revelation takes, as much as this is necessary to remain in solidarity with, and to continue to work through, his fallen and culturally conditioned people.

Our choices matter. Much hangs in the balance. Our freedom is God's risk and our dignity.

The creational monotheism of the Bible and of the church seems to logically require something like a prehistoric fall, regardless of how we interpret the Chaoskampf material of the Old Testament. Assuming that there is one eternal Creator God who is all-good and all-powerful, it is illogical to posit a foundational structural evil within the cosmos.

For we are only as healthy as our picture of God is accurate.

According to the substantival view, all people are of infinite worth, regardless of their natural or acquired abilities or disabilities, simply because they possess a soul. It may be that certain persons cannot or do not exercise the capacities of their soul. Their intrinsic value, however, is rooted in the fact that they possess a soul, whether or not its capacities are exercised.

Hear Jesus say, "Jill, I will never hurt you or shame you. I told you I will never leave you nor forsake you. Never! I love you with an everlasting and perfect love." Can you hear Jesus say this? JILL: Yes.

If a crystal ball gives God any advantage, then you've got a stupid God.

Opponents of this view often point out that it is not rooted in an exegesis of Genesis 1:26—28, the central biblical text that discusses the imago Dei. Indeed, it is frequently argued that the view that the imago Dei refers to the soul is more influenced by Greek philosophy than by Scripture. More specifically, it is argued that the traditional emphasis on reason as one of the hallmarks of the imago Dei is a distinctly Hellenistic, not Hebraic, notion.

Most importantly, if we approach the passage with the assumption that the author was concerned with chronology, we miss the profound thematic point the author is making throughout this passage, namely, that God brings order out of chaos.